Spurs' Parker is NBA Workman MVP

He's not in the MVP conversation with James and Durant, but the San Antonio point guard holds it all together for his team

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, center, talks with Tony Parker (9), of France, during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013, in San Antonio. Spurs' Manu Ginobili (20), of Argentina, looks on. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

CORPUS CHRISTI - Thursday night's game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat, like the entire first half of the season, illustrated just how far above the rest of the league that Kevin Durant and LeBron James are. In leading his Heat to a win over the Thunder, LeBron had his historically efficient streak end with a 39-point (on 58% shooting), 12-rebound and seven-assist performance. Think about that for a second; his streak of great games ended on a night when he put up 39/12/7 on 58% shooting. And even in what looked like one of his worst games of the season (he didn't have a point in the first quarter), Kevin Durant ended up dropping 40 points on 12-of-24 shooting against the Heat thanks to a 22-point fourth quarter performance that nearly brought OKC back from the grave.

LeBron and Durant are the only real MVP candidates this season, and the gap between them and the rest of the league isn't close. Aside from Chris Paul, who is the only other player in the league besides James and Durant to have a PER above 26 at the all-star break, no other player in the league brings as much to the table on a nightly basis as LeBron and KD, and even Paul doesn't contribute on the same scale as those two.

Because Durant and James have put themselves in a place that nobody else in the league can get to, I feel it necessary to deem the two ineligible from all MVP talk the rest of the season. LeBron is going to win the award (unless the media is bored again), Durant will likely complete the best regular season campaign ever to not warrant an MVP award (this is discounting all of the times MJ warranted an MVP but didn't receive one) and Paul may end up with the greatest third banana season in MVP history. Assuming good health for those three guys down the stretch, their spots on the ballot should remain as 1-2-3 and there will be little reason to discuss it.

Thus, it's time to start talking the top candidate for what I'll call the Workman's MVP Award: Tony Parker, a fitting candidate given how much hard work has to do with his progression over the past few years.

Parker is having the best season of his career by far, even better than his 2008-09 season in which he had to focus on scoring because of injuries to Ginobili and Duncan. Coincidentally, several DNPs from Manu and Duncan have also contributed to Parker's career year this season, as he's been doing a tad bit more of everything in their absence. He's got the higher PER of his career (24.53), he's got the second highest assist rate of his career, he's leading the Spurs in overall net rating (meaning the Spurs are at their best when he is on the floor) and the Spurs have the best record in the league at the all-star break yet again despite missing key players at every turn, in large part because Parker has played in 51 of their 54 games.

Part of the reason that Parker is having the best season of his career is simply because he is better at putting the ball in the basket from various spots on the floor than ever before.

According to Hoopdata, Parker is shooting an above average 43% from the mid-range, a career high 50% from 10-15 feet, 52% from 3-9 feet and a career high 70% at the rim. On top of that, Parker's even got the second highest three-point percentage of his career (39.3%) and he's become a very useful corner three-point shooter (he's shooting 45% from the corner this season), which makes him even more deadly in a Spurs' system that relies heavily on the most efficient shot in basketball. The only point guards in the NBA with that can match Parker's true shooting percentage this season are three of the greatest shooters ever: Steve Nash, Jose Calderon and Chris Paul. Parker may not be as smooth with his jumper as those guys, but he has worked tirelessly to improve his precision from the outside, and it is starting to pay major dividends for the Spurs. And in case you were curious, Parker's floater is still deadly. He is shooting 55.5% on shots classified as runners by Synergy Sports Technology. The only player with 50 runners attempted this season that has a higher percentage than Parker? CP3 at 55.6%.

Going through Parker's Synergy sheet - which breaks down his efficiency on specific playtypes - is like looking over my high school report cards: there are a couple of very good's and a whole lot of excellent's. He's one of the best handful of pick-and-roll operators in the league, he's lethal on the break, he's tremendous when matched up against somebody one-on-one, he's improving as a spot-up shooter and he's gotten very good at using the space created for him when the Spurs run him off screens. Aside from getting a heavy dose of pick-and-roll action, opponents have to prepare for Parker to attack them in any number of ways on any given night, and often times knowing what's coming won't be enough.

While becoming a more efficient scorer has contributed greatly to his crescendo as a player this season, his development as a passer over the past few years is easily the biggest reason why Parker has become one of the 10 best players in basketball. Parker came into the league as a score first guard whose instincts were to put up a shot the second he had enough space to do so. But over the past few seasons, while the pace has sped up for the Spurs, the game has slowed down in Parker's mind, and he is seeing things in a much different light each time he drives to the basket. Parker has developed a much better understanding of how to make a defense pay when he breaks them down with his dribble penetration. Now finding those shooters on the weakside or swinging the ball back to his big man on a pick-and-pop are second nature to Parker, whereas Gregg Popovich had to drill the concept of Parker's drives being a way to get his teammates shots into his head when he was younger.

Parker's experience in the pick-and-roll game and his expertly manufactured court vision have combined to make him as close to a flawless pick-and-roll player as there is in the league. He's percentage points away from a career low in turnover rate while posting the second best assist rate and the highest true shooting percentage of his career. No defensive scheme seems to phase him at this point, with Oklahoma City's decision to switch Thabo Sefolosha onto him during the Western Conference Finals last season being the last thing I remember truly slowing Parker down. I also think that playing with Manu Ginobili has had an impact on Parker's game. Aside from seeing the floor better and having a more complete understanding of how his movements effect the defenses' rotations, Parker's actual passing arsenal is much more diverse than it was a few years ago. Now we're seeing Parker throw quirky bounce passes from weird angles straight out of the Ginobili playbook that leave the opposition wondering if there's a way to stop him and generally seems more like a passing wizard than he did in years past.

Of course, I still like it when Parker passes on the opportunity to skip the ball over an open teammate, because he's one of the more creative scorers in the league when he gets a good look at the rim. Parker is the personification of a dart, and not just because he's fast; when he turns the corner on a pick-and-roll, he's got a wide range of moves in his arsenal that allow him to differentiate the ways and the spots that he attacks on the court. Just as one can alter the trajectory of the dart, Parker can change the way he punishes a defense with a flick of the wrist, whether it be to size-up with the dribble, attack the rim hard or pull-up for his patented teardrop. If a defense spends too much time or man power attempting to prevent Parker from getting a bullseye, he'll happily settle for the outer bull (his floater), the double ring (his mid-range two) or even the rare triple ring (his corner three).

According to Synergy Sports Technology, Parker is scoring .973 points per possession as a pick-and-roll ball handler this season, and he's shooting 53% on such plays. Of players with at least 200 plays finished as a pick-and-roll ball handler, Parker's PPP ranks third in the league behind James Harden and LeBron James. Switch the sorting metric to field goal percentage and Parker tops the field, with only Will Bynum, LeBron, Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade shooting 50% or better. When you broaden the possessions spectrum and include the points scored by other players with the Spurs run a pick-and-roll with Parker, he ranks fifth in PPP produced (at least 200 possessions). And once again, sort by field goal percentage and it turns out that the Spurs shoot 50.3% off of Parker pick-and-rolls, the highest mark in the league.

One last and underrated aspect of Parker's game that has seen marked improvements over the past few seasons is his defense. Parker has been up-and-down on this end of the floor for most of his career but his effort his been very consistent of late. I remember hearing Pop mention how Parker's pesty defense made a real impact on the way Chris Paul played during the playoffs last season. Paul may have been hurt, but a hurt CP3 can still be excellent if you don't take him out of his comfort zone, and Parker made sure he never got into a rhythm. Most recently, Parker did an excellent job guarding budding superstar Kyrie Irving, particularly on the final play of the game in which he prevented Irving from getting a clean look at the rim for a game-winner. Because San Antonio chooses to have their guards fight through screens and recover to their man, Parker has to do a lot of work on the defensive end simply to get into position to play defense once he is screened, but he has shown to be a very hard worker on that end of the floor.

There is not a whole lot that Parker could do better at this point in his career. At the age of 30 he has reached his peak and his playing some of the best basketball we've seen from the point guard spot in some time. Given the amount of team success Parker has been apart of, he has definitely cemented his legacy as a top-5 five point guard of his era (along with Paul, Nash and Kidd) and one of the greatest international players of all-time (ditto for Manu). Unfortunately for Parker, he's having the best year of his career in a season in which LeBron James and Kevin Durant have decided to morph into cyborgs hell bent on making a mockery of their former peers, which strips him of his first real chance at an MVP award, as well as few dozen headlines here or there.

But part of me feels like that doesn't matter to Parker. Sure, the attention would be nice, but he's grown used to a lack of national respect by now. This is not new for him. As long as he's able to get his hands on a different kind of hardware in June, I think Parker will be just fine if he isn't able to add an MVP award to the trophy case this summer.